Today, Lukashenka celebrates his 70th birthday. This summer also marks his 30 years in power. Yet, he began his career with the slogan, "The era of seventy-year-old rulers is coming to an end. Belarus needs new leaders and new policies".

I spoke with EL MUNDO , a Spanish leading newspaper. Journalist Xavier Colás asked me a good question that many have on their mind. Why González, an uncovered Russian spy, spied on me and why it is serious. The answer is in the thread. 1/6

Salient point by the daughter of Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015, on the dangers of the unknown whims of the Kremlin.

It took a looong time for the US to sanction Simonyan, mainly (I think) because USG was loath to sanction journalists, even ones who openly admit they work directly for Putin (or "the boss," as Simonyan calls him).

More wacky AI-generated images from RIA Novosti's opinion pages.

I feel like the people behind the NBA clickbait I get on my social feeds are running low on players to profile, and that I'll soon be seeing headlines like: "How good was Darius Songaila REALLY?"

Мы нашли в американских судебных документах 40 страниц переписки Александра Ионова со своими кураторами из ФСБ и отобрали оттуда лучшие и самые смешные фрагменты Mark Krutov Mike Eckel Carl Schreck smarturl.click/B69wQ

🧶"They cut our money, that's a fact." 40+ pages of WhatsApp messages between U.S.-indicted Alexander Ionov and his FSB handlers depict RU agents as both funny and miserable, yet still malicious. For instance, it appears Ionov was instrumental in helping to ban @occrp in Russia.

We identified all 4 FSB agents whose phone numbers appeared in the chat and called them. 2 of 4 answered. One, Vistoropsky, seemed reluctant to change his number after the U.S. court reveal because it was 'fancy' and probably had cost him a lot 😅

I have read all 43 pages and now want someone to adapt this into a screenplay for a TV comedy series. Think the Office crossed with the Death of Stalin, but about 10x more incompetent. A thread of some choice quotes:

A good thread featuring additional quotes (we had to omit some in the text) and insightful findings from the metadata revealed by the court. x.com/elisethoma5/st…

Суд в США в рамках рассмотрения дела против российского провластного активиста Александра Ионова опубликовал его переписку с сотрудниками ФСБ. Из этих материалов следует, что Ионов сотрудничал со спецслужбой как минимум с 2013 года.  meduza.io/feature/2024/0…

You only get one power dribble.